Emoticons were initially created to help illustrate hard-to-explain emotions in text, but as it turns out, they’re actually obscuring the way we communicate. A study from the University of Minnesota’s GroupLens laboratory reveals that when two people look at the same emoji, they often have differing opinions on what it depicts. This discrepancy is further exacerbated when viewing emoji from different platforms, as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung all have their own way of illustrating the same emoji. Head to New York Magazine to see most misconstrued emoticons on any platform.